Category: Baking Recipes

Skillet Cornbread

This skillet cornbread is rustic, custard-topped, and crusty-edged. It is bolstered with herbs and a bit of quinoa for an incredibly good accompaniment to chili or a favorite soup. Inspired by a legendary Marion Cunningham recipe.

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One of my favorite cornmeal recipes is Marion Cunningham’s Custard-Filled Cornbread from The Breakfast Book. My neighbor in San Francisco brought it to a Halloween potluck (to much fanfare), and it occurred to me it was the same cornbread Molly writes about in A Homemade Life. Everyone in my family now loves this cornbread, and it has shown up at many family gatherings over the years. It is one of those recipes, so spot-on, I thought I’d never change it, tweak it, or make it any other way. There was no need. Keep it simple, leave it alone.
skillet cornbread with a slice removed

Skillet Cornbread: The Inspiration

Narrator voice: she was unable to leave it alone. I eventually did an alternative version good enough to share. I took the general approach to Marion’s custard cornbread, introduced a cast-iron skillet, and a few ingredients that pair nicely with corn – herbs, quinoa. My hope was that it would result in something unique and special. And wow, did it ever work out!

skillet cornbread after baking

I hope you’ll agree, the results are impressive. A rustic, minimally structured, custard-topped, crusty-edged, herb-scented corn-quinoa skillet cornbread. The recipe yields enough for a small crowd. Each piece is dense and moist, rich with ribbons of varying texture. It’s quite special and, if you are a cornbread aficionado, worth a go.

skillet cornbread cooling on a blue hot pad

Let me know if you try it out – it’s perfect for picnics, potlucks, family meals, chili night,Thanksgiving and the like!

More bread recipes:

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Vegetable Pot Pie

This hearty vegetable pot pie is made with a flaky, all-butter pie crust encasing a creamy, herbed potato, carrot, pea and onion filling. A homemade savory pie like this is such a treat! There are a couple tips you should know to help you take it from good to exceptional.

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I know a lot of people make vegetable pot pies with store-bought puff pastry, but over the years I’ve come to believe a homemade pie crust is, by far, the superior way to go. It makes the whole pot pie endeavor worth it. These pies are rustic and creamy, often lovingly constructed. A great pie crust lends butter-kissed backbone and structure. A flaky, decadent counterpoint to the classic, creamy, vegetable filling. Let’s make a pie!
vegetable pot pie on a cooling rack with a slice on a plate nearby

Vegetable Pot Pie: Real Talk

My main piece of advice here is this. If you’re are aiming to make a vegetable pot pie from scratch, plan ahead. Going from start to finish in one go can be a bit of an undertaking – pie dough, filling, assembly, bake, etc. But! If you keep pie crusts at the ready in your freezer, and make the filling a day or two in advance, pulling this pie together is an absolute breeze.

Pro Tips:

There are a few things I do as I’m making pot pies to level them up. Little details to help delineate my pie from your average vegetarian pot pie.

  • Homemade pie crust: Per the opening paragraph, I’ll go to the mat encouraging you to make your own pie dough. Make a few rounds of dough and keep it in the freezer for months. The flavor! The flakiness! Once you nail down the pie dough making process it’s hard to go back to a store-bought crust. Can you use a store-bought crust for this recipe? Yes, absolutely. Will it be better with a homemade pie crust? Yes, absolutely.

    vegetable pot pie before baking
  • Caramelize your onions: Really go for it. Most pot pie fillings have you sauté onions until tender in the beginning. I have you go well beyond that. By browning the onions and celery you’re developing more depth and flavor as the base of your filling.
  • Lemon zest: Sprinkle your pie plate with lemon zest before lining with the pie crust. Add some to your filling as well. The zest combines with the butter from the crust to perfume the whole situation. The brightness of the zest really brings something to the filling as well.
    pie plate prepared with bitter and lemon zest

Vegetable Pot Pies: Common Mistakes

There are a number of common pitfalls to avoid when making a pot pie.

  • Cool your filling completely: When you go to assemble your pie, it’s important that your filling is completely cold. Adding a warm filling is going to melt the butter in your crust prematurely and can contribute to a soggy pie bottom in the end. You want a golden, structured bottom crust. The solution? If you’re in a rush, spread the hot pie filling across a large plate, and place in the refrigerator, stirring now and then until cool.
    filling for vegetable pot pie in a large skillet with a metal spatula
  • Place pie on baking sheet: This is one mistake I still make too often, unfortunately. Placing your pie on a baking sheet while baking will protect your oven from any spills, overflows, or melted butter. It makes clean up much easier and you won’t have things burning onto the bottom of your oven.
  • Keep an eagle eye on your crust: I love a deeply golden, rustic pie crust. But the edges of a pie can get dark while the center is still underbaked. A problem! Have tinfoil strips or a pie shield ready to protect areas of your pie until the rest of the pie catches up. If you want to up your pie game over time, a basic pie shield is a great, inexpensive purchase!

vegetable pot pie with a slice cut from it
Pot Pie Leftovers:

Refrigerate leftovers, covered, for up to 5 days. Reheat in a 350°F / 175°C oven, covered in foil, until filling is completely hot.
a slice of vegetable pot pie on a plate with a fork

Can I Make Pot Pies Ahead of Time?

If you want to make a pot pie ahead of time, make the filling in advance and refrigerate or freeze until ready to assemble the pie. Thawing first, of course. Make the pie dough ahead of time as well. You’re going to have more success baking the day you want to serve the pie.

Vegetable Pot Pie Variations

  • Make it spicy: Add a couple teaspoons of your favorite curry powder (or to taste) to the filling. You might also add some to the pie crust as well.
  • Explore different vegetables: Use what you have and love! Or explore what is seasonal. Great vegetable options include: sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, shredded cabbage, pumpkin, and corn. Roasted cherry tomatoes add an amazing burst of flavor.
    ingredients to make vegetable pot pie arrange on counter including potatoes, frozen peas, and carrots
  • Coconut milk: Use coconut milk (full fat) in place of the heavy cream for a different flavor profile.
  • Pesto: Skip the other herbs in the recipe and stir a couple tablespoons of pesto into your filling at the end. Or dollop it on top of the filling as you’re assembling your pot pie, before putting the top crust on.

vegetable pot pie on a wire cooling rack
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Strawberry Scones

These strawberry scones check all the boxes. Made with juicy sweet strawberries, they’re tender and rustic with golden craggy edges and a sugar-crusted top.

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There are some things to know before you jump into making these strawberry scones. First, the foundation of a great scone is a good recipe and cold ingredients. The cold ingredients will make the dough much easier to work with. Second, let your scones bake long enough, really keep an eye on things. For the scone style you see here, you don’t want pale. Much of the flavor happens as the sugars, and butter, and edges of each scone brown. Lastly, scones made with fresh fruit are best warm from the oven. Bake just before you want to enjoy them whenever possible. Or do a quick reheat.
strawberry scones on a baking sheet

Strawberry Scones: The Ingredients

A few words about the ingredients I use here and why.

  • Flours: Most scone recipes use all-purpose flour exclusively. But I find that adding a percentage of whole wheat flour can really anchor a scone and bring flavor dimension. Don’t worry, you won’t run into any dreaded whole-wheat dryness with these. The whole wheat flour really lends rustic farmhouse vibes in the best way possible with a tender crumb. Now when I go back to tasting more conventional scones, they end up tasting too one-dimensional to me.
  • Sugar: I’ve baked these scones with a rotating cast of sugars over the years. Different amounts, different types. I feel like this recipe needs the sharp edge of white sugar to balance the other ingredients in these scones – for example, the tangy buttermilk or sour cream. Just sweet enough is what I was after here, and for whatever reason the brown sugar tend to get lost. And a blend didn’t do the job either.
    ingredients for making a strawberry scone recipe arranged on a marble counter
  • Other: I use quite a bit less baking powder and baking soda than other scone recipes. You don’t really need more than the amount in this recipe, and the buttermilk neutralizes any residual off flavor from the leavening agents.

strawberry scones on a baking sheet

Variations:

The recipe below is for classic strawberry scones with a bit of zest. Aside from the zest, they’re straight-forward, direct, a good scone foundation. That said, I often switch them up with one or two of the following:

  • citrus: zest of one lemon  or lime (mix into wet ingredients)
  • rosemary: I love the combination of strawberry and rosemary. Finely chop 2 five-inch sprigs of rosemary – 1 1/2 teaspoons or so. (Add to dry ingredients)
  • black pepper: black pepper and strawberry are a classic combination. Add scant 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper to dry ingredients. Adjust with more in future batches if you love it.
  • poppy seeds: add 1/3 cup to dry ingredients.
  • toasted almonds: be sure they’ve cooled completely. (Add to dry ingredients)
  • crystalized ginger: adds jolts of chewy ginger sugar. Chop it small and add it along with the wet ingredients.
  • icing: lot of people like an iced drizzle over their scones. If you would rather have a drizzle top, here’s the plan. Use lemon zest in place of the orange zest called for in the recipe. Skip the sugar sprinkle, but do the egg wash. Allow scones to cool completely after baking, and use the salted lemon glaze from this glazed lemon cake recipe. Or do half and half so you can enjoy the sugar-topped scones warm.
 


Making Strawberry Scones By Hand

The recipe below assumes you have an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, but making them by hand is also possible and will save you some dishes! To make these scones by hand, watch the above video and reference these instructions:

  1. Mix the dry ingredients well and then turn out into a pile on your counter top. Sprinkle the cold butter across the flour mixture and use your hands to rub the butter into the flour until it is evenly distributed throughout. You can use a dough scraper (or pastry cutter) to chop through the pile a bit and break up any butter lumps. You want the mixture to be sandy, with tiny pebbles.
  2. Shape: Wrangle the flour mixture back into a pile with a dough scraper and make a well in the middle (the way you do when making homemade pasta). Pour the wet ingredients into the well and use your dough scraper to fold and mix the flour into the wet ingredients. Keep going until there is no dry flour left and a dough has started to form. At this point sprinkle the berries across the top, and fold them into the mixture as well.
    strawberry scone dough cut into wedges prior to baking
  3. Gather the dough into a ball and proceed with the recipe as written – slicing the dough into wedges and so forth.

More Scone Recipes

strawberry scones on a baking sheet
More Strawberry Recipes

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Itsy Bitsy Chocolate Chip Cookies

The perfect bite-sized chocolate chip cookie. Tiny, thin, golden, crisp, a bit nutty with plenty of shaved chocolate.

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I recognize the lead photo for this post makes these chocolate chip cookies look enormous. They are not. In fact, one of these cookies is about the size of a half-dollar, you might be able to fit a dozen of them in the palm of your hand. And while the photo might be a bit misleading, the trade-off is that you can see all the flecks of shaved chocolate, oats, and walnuts that are packed into every tiny cookie. The grains of sugar on top? They give the cookies just the right amount of crunch. These are the perfect bite-sized cookie, and each batch makes nearly twelve dozen of them.

itsy bitsy chocolate chip cookie

Itsy Bitsy Chocolate Chip Cookies: The Concept

I started working on this recipe over the summer (it took a few tries!). I knew I wanted my cookie to be tiny. I wanted it to be thin, and I wanted it to be golden, crisp, nutty, with plenty of chocolate. I started shaving the chocolate early on, instead of using chips or chunks. It ended up being one of the things that makes these cookies unique -and it allows you to press the dough near flat.

chocolate chip cookie on parchment paper

The recipe doubles easily, and I can’t resist mentioning that ice-cream sandwiches made with them are tres cute and tasty. The key is resisting the urge to use too much dough when you’re shaping them.

itsy bitsy chocolate chip cookie on parchment paper

Variations: 

There have been some great substitutions and variations in the comments. I’ll call out a few that caught my attention.

  • Susie says, “These cookies were AMAZING!! I used date sugar instead of the cane sugar, and they turned out just fine. I gave some to my best friend, and she said, “I’d pay MONEY for these!” “
  • Leigh went the coconut route, “I made these tonight replacing 1/2 cup of the oats with a mixture of toasted coconut and toasted wheat germ.”
  • Sassy reports, “I added raisins and Craisins to half the batch. Yum yum!”

chocolate chip cookie dough balls on parchment-lined baking sheets

More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes

Or browse all the cookie recipes. I especially love the classics like these shortbread cookies, these limoncello macaroons, these ginger cookies, or these special snickerdoodles. Have fun baking!

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Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

Classic peanut butter cookies flecked with oatmeal and baked until golden. Double down on the peanut front with hand-chopped peanuts and chunky peanut butter.

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This is a peanut butter butter cookie flecked with oatmeal and baked until golden. A cookie for the peanut butter lovers out there. Anchored squarely in the PBC zone, the oatmeal is an accent. A hearty, chewy bonus ingredient that levels up a classic cookie. Toasted at the edges, soft and fudgy textured in the center, they’re a peanuty dream. Especially dunked in coffee.
peanut butter cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies: Ingredients

A few notes related to the ingredients in these cookies. The ingredients are all quite straight-forward, and you might have them in your pantry currently.

ingredients for making peanut butter cookies arranges on a counter including sugars, butter, chopped peanuts, and baking soda

  • Peanut Butter: For these cookies, my preference is all-natural peanut butter. I go into more detail down below. That said, if you already have peanut butter on hand, use it! One peanut butter I grab when I see it is this one (not sponsored, just a fan). It’s dark roasted, organic, made simply with roasted peanuts and a bit of salt, with good flavor. Note that it isn’t the “no-stir” variety.
  • Brown Sugar: You can use whatever brown sugar you have on hand to make these cookies. The cookies you see pictured here were made with light brown sugar, but I often make them with dark brown sugar.
  • Peanuts: This recipe doubles down on the peanuts, it’s all about the peanut flavor. In addition to the peanut butter, you’ll add about a cup of well-chopped peanuts. Use whatever peanuts you like to snack on.
  • Oatmeal: Look for old-fashioned rolled oats. Not instant oats.

a peanut butter cookie on a baking sheet made with oatmeal

Can I use Natural Peanut Butter in Peanut Butter Cookies?

Yes, you can absolutely use natural peanut butter in this cookie dough. The cookies you see pictured here were made with natural peanut butter. If you aren’t sure what type of peanut butter you have, check the ingredient list on the back of your jar. I like to see peanuts, and maybe a bit of salt. In contrast, a lot of peanut butter cookie recipes will suggest using more processed peanut butter. The ingredient list for these types of peanut butters will often have added sugars, oils, and/or stabilizers. That said, use what you have. With a more processed p.b. the texture of your cookies might a bit more fudgy, and with the natural peanut butter it’s sometimes a shade more crumbly.

  • The Key:  I’ve found the key to using natural peanut butter is stirring it until it is well blended and completely uniform.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies: The Technique

Simple to make, these cookies are a basic drop cookie.

  1. Mix the wet ingredients:  Cream the butter, sugar, and peanut butter in an electric mixer. Add the eggs and vanilla.
    a peanut butter cookie on a baking sheet made with oatmeal
  2. Dry ingredients: Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in stages to the wet ingredients. Stir in the peanuts and oats by hand (above).
  3. Shape: Scoop the dough onto a baking sheet and chill for 30 minutes.
    oatmeal peanut butter cookie dough on a baking sheet prior to baking
  4. Criss-cross: Press the tops of each cookie with the tines of a fork twice, in a grid design (above).
  5. Bake: Put the cookies in the oven, bake and then cool.

a peanut butter cookie on a baking sheet made with oatmeal

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Easter Brunch Ideas

A collection of all-star Easter brunch ideas ranging from a favorite breakfast casserole recipe to the best waffle recipe I know. All worth making year-round as well!

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I know many of you are on the hunt for good Easter brunch recipes right now. Here are a few favorites. I’m highlighting them here for Easter, but they’re all a part of my year-round repertoire. For brunch I love family-style dishes like breakfast casseroles and frittatas equally as much as a waffle or omelette bar. I mean, who doesn’t love a DIY toppings situation? You’ll see a mix of all this down below along with favorite drinks and a handful of menu ideas. Have fun planning!

Easter Brunch Ideas

I limited this recipe list to long-time favorites. Real go-to options, the brunch all-stars. Be sure to browse the list of menu ideas down below if you need inspiration on that front!

Breakfast Casserole
Everything Bagel Breakfast Casserole: A top contender for Easter brunch. Breakfast casseroles are a thing for good reason. You can prep them the day before. They’re great for serving a crowd, and they’re endlessly adaptable. This is my take on the popular Everything Bagel Breakfast Casserole. It’s a deep-dish merging of grated cheese, bagels, eggs, plant-based sausage along with the crunch and savoriness of everything bagel seasoning. The bagels that break through the top get beautifully crunchy and kissed with oven-toasted cheese. Give it a try!Fregola Sarda
Fregola Sarda: It’s a favorite recipe from Near & Far. The perfect lunchy, brunch dish, and it’s made with fregola. Fregola is a beautiful, tasty Sardinian pasta made from hard durum wheat flour – rolled, sun-dried, and toasted to a mix of shades of yellow, gold, and brown. The pasta is rustic and nutty, each grain with a raggy surface adept at catching flavor. So good!
Deep dish quiche
Deep Dish Quiche: The deep dish quiche of your dreams. It’s made with a flaky all-butter crust. The filling is silky smooth and creamy, while still being perfectly sliceable. Switch up the add-ins based on the seasons – roasted cherry tomatoes in summer, winter squash later in the year.

Frittata Recipe
A Tasty Frittata: I love a good frittata as part of a brunch spread. You can pre-bake them a bit ahead of time which opens up the oven for other dishes if needed. This is a tasty, super adaptable frittata recipe made with potatoes, onions, and eggs drizzled with a cilantro chile sauce. Don’t skimp on the sauce!
Waffle Recipe
The Best Waffles: You’re looking at the waffles I make for (literally) every family brunch, and they’re perfect for an Easter brunch gathering. You can set up a toppings bar, and let people make their own, or pre-make them and hold in a warm oven. If you’re a waffle fan, please give these a try. Everyone needs a solid waffle recipe in their back pocket, and I’m quite sure these are the end of the waffle conversation for me. Enjoy!
Red Fruit Salad
Red Fruit Salad: Red fruit salad, and arguably so much better than old-school fruit salad! It’s perfect as spring rounds the bend into summer. A simple, seasonal fruit salad made with plump strawberries, sweet cherries, lemon zest, and coriander brown sugar. Five ingredients. So good. If cherries aren’t quite in season where you are, go with 100% strawberries.
Pancake Recipe
Classic Pancakes: If you’re more of a pancake family, this is a classic pancake recipe that delivers a beautiful, classic stack with impossibly tender crumb and golden edges. It has been a favorite go-to since I first posted it in 2006. The pancakes have lightness and lift, and good color. The recipe is also endlessly adaptable based on what you have on hand.
Pancake Recipe
Sheet Pan Frittata: If you like to serve family style, a sheet pan frittata is another great option. You don’t need much to make a great one. This one starts with a dusting of lemon zest (key!) across a sheet pan, and uses a simple egg, cream, salt and pepper base.

Pancake Recipe
Tofu Scramble: This tofu scramble is fast, savory, and flavorful egg-free brunch option. Made with spinach, curry powder, nutritional yeast, garlic, and onions, this is the version we’ve been making for years! Also, super adaptable to whatever vegetables and seasonings you have on hand.

Omelette Recipe
Skinny Omelettes: Setting up an omelette “station” with a range of toppings works great if you have a casual brunch situation. People can make and customize omelettes to their liking with fillings like caramelized onions, pesto, herbs, choice of cheeses, etc. These omelettes are made with eggs cooked crepe-thin and stuffed. A delicious and lighter alternative to heavy, cheese-stuffed omelette recipes – great for lunch and brunch.

Easter Brunch Ideas: Breads & Cakes

Braided Onion Bread
Braided Onion Bread: Every Easter brunch spread welcomes a statement piece. This is one of my favorites. Made with a rich, buttery, yeast-based dough, each of the four strands in the braid is stuffed with a caramelized onion and grated cheese mixture. If you’ve never baked a braided loaf before, I’ll admit that stuffing the strands adds a layer of complexity, but the whole process is incredibly forgiving if you commit and keep going. Give it a try!
glazed lemon cake
Glazed Lemon Cake: A sunny, bright addition to any Easter spread. This lemon cake is moist, fragrant and topped with a salted lemon glaze. It is made with lots of lemon zest and freshly squeezed lemon juice. You don’t need a mixer, the olive oil based batter comes together quickly, and you’re not much longer than an hour from having a beautiful cake to share.

Cheddar Jalapeño Oatmeal Bread
Cheddar Jalapeño Oatmeal Bread: This oatmeal bread wins the award for best toast. It’s a hearty oat-flecked loaf with a buttermilk base studded generously with melty cubes of cheddar cheese and punctuated with thin slices of jalapeño pepper. Where the cheese touches the pan it turns to golden-crispy perfection.
Cinnamon Rolls Recipe
Cinnamon Rolls: If making these cinnamon rolls for Easter brunch, I’m going to make a suggestion. Swap out the cinnamon for citrus. Like, use the zest of a lemon or two in the filling and a tablespoon or so of lemon juice in the icing along with the heavy cream called for as the liquids in the icing.

What To Make with Extra Eggs

If you find yourself with extra cartons of eggs after Easter, here are some ideas.

Deviled Eggs Recipe
Deviled Eggs: I love these so much – beautiful and delicious deviled eggs made with an herb-flecked filling and topped with toasted almonds.
Egg Salad Sandwich
Egg Salad: My go-to egg salad, and what I turn to when craving an egg salad sandwich. This post talks you through all the little tweaks and tips that go into making the perfect egg salad sandwich. Served on garlic-rubbed toasted bread with chopped celery, onion, and whole-grain mustard.

Shredded Egg Salad
Shredded Egg Salad: A fun alternative to classic egg salad (above). This one is made by shredding hard-boiled eggs on a box grater. The resulting shredded egg salad is light, fluffy, and bright. Pictured here on avocado toast with scallions, pickled red onions, a pinch of curry powder and sesame seeds.

Easter Brunch Menu Ideas

Here are a few sample menus to start with. When I say toppings bar, I just mean putting out a range of different topping options. It’s a great way to let everyone make omelettes or waffles exactly the way they like it.

Menu #1

  • Everything Bagel Breakfast Casserole
  • Strawberry Salad
  • Ginger Grapefruit Juice

Menu #2

  • Cheddar Jalapeño Oatmeal Bread
  • A Tasty Frittata or Skinny Omelettes with Toppings Bar
  • Iced Green Tea
  • Glazed Lemon Cake

Menu #3

Menu #4

  • Waffles with Toppings Bar
  • A Tasty Frittata
  • Homemade Strawberry Almond Milk

Easter Brunch Drink Ideas

Freshly squeezed juices, or homemade drinks are an easy way to make a brunch menu feel extra special. Here are a few favorites from past brunches.pineapple coconut water
Pineapple Coconut Water: A beautiful shade of Easter yellow, this beauty is always first to go at any brunch spread. Freshly juiced pineapple is at the heart of this quencher – made with coconut water, lime, and straight ginger juice. It’s invigorating, fragrant, hydrating, and that pure, intense shade of yellow that somehow tips us off to its strength and vitality before ever picking up the glass.
Homemade Strawberry Almond Milk
Homemade Strawberry Almond Milk: As good as it sounds. Ripe strawberries plus fresh almond milk were made for each other. And yes, you can use frozen berries!
Iced Green Tea
Iced Green Tea: As good as it sounds. Ripe strawberries plus fresh almond milk were made for each other. And yes, you can use frozen berries!

freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
Ginger-kissed Grapefruit Juice: This grapefruit juice will jolt you to attention. It’s just the thing if you’re looking for something bright, invigorating, spicy, and full volume citrus. Steep grated ginger in a bit of sugared water, and then strain it into a lime & grapefruit juice blend.

 

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Cheesecake Bars

These creamy, decadent cheesecake bars feature a citrus swirled top, vanilla cream cheese filling, and shortbread cookie base. We’ve been baking these for special occasions for over twenty years!

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I started making these cheesecake bars twenty years ago. They’re beautiful, wildly decadent, and the perfect special treat. Pools of citrus curd blend into a vanilla flecked cream cheese filling. A shortbread cookie crust provides crunch and structure as the base. With each bite you’re hit with a blast of citrus intensity, and the swirl top is dramatic and beautiful.
slice of a cheesecake bar on a small plate with a fork

Cheesecake Bars: The Inspiration

There was a moment in the early 00s where ripple-topped cheesecake bars were having a real moment. I clipped a number of versions from newspapers and magazines including one from Food & Wine magazine and another from the Spring 2004 issue of Donna Hay. These bars were typically lemon flavored but I found over the years that I really love making zesty grapefruit versions, or my absolute favorite (pictured here) – blood orange. I include instructions in the recipe below.
cheesecake bars served on a marble table on plates

The Ingredients

The ingredient list for these cheesecake bars is quite straight forward. If you keep cream cheese on hand, you might have the rest of the ingredients in your pantry. A couple notes related to key ingredients.

  • Cream Cheese: Go for the real deal, full fat version here.
  • Citrus: I call for a blend of orange and lemon juice in this version of the recipe, but you can play around with whatever citrus you have on hand. I’ve had it on my list to experiment with a key lime version (or makrut lime!) for ages.
  • Sugar: Opt for a fine, granulated sugar here.

cheesecake bars baked in a glass baking dish

How To Make Cheesecake Bars

There are three main components to these cheesecake bars. The shortbread base, the cream cheese filling, and the citrus topping swirl.

  1. Make the cookie base: You can see the concept pictured here (below). Press and bake cookie dough into your pan and bake until golden.
    cookie dough crust as first layer in glass baking dish
  2. Make the citrus curd swirl mixture: This is done in a saucepan using egg yolks citrus juices, sugar, cornstarch, heat, and patience.
    curd ingredients in stainless steel saucepan
  3. Make the cream cheese filling: This step is a breeze. You basically whip up a lot of cream cheese, then sweeten and flavor it.
  4. Assemble and bake. One of the keys here is avoiding baking too long. You want to bake these bars until they’re just set in the center.
    cheesecake bars baked in a glass baking dish

Cheesecake Bars: Variations

As mentioned above, the first way you can switch things up here is to play around with the shape of the pan you bake in. You can make individual tarts or mini-tarts, or bake in a long pan and slice into strips.

  • Lemon Cheesecake Bars: Use freshly squeezed lemon juice and lemon zest. Bonus points for using Meyer lemons – extra special!
  • Orange Blossom Cheesecake Bars: This version is beautiful. Use a small splash of good quality orange blossom water in place of the vanilla in the recipe. It accentuates the orange in the recipe and perfumes your entire kitchen as the bars are baking.
  • Rose Citrus Cheesecake Bars: This is the same idea as the orange blossom version above, substitute a splash of rose water for the vanilla in the recipe. Or! Leave the vanilla in. Rose, vanilla, and orange are a beautiful combination.

cheesecake bars baked in a glass baking dish
More Baking Recipes

slice of a cheesecake bar on a small plate with a fork

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Homemade Coconut Cream Pie

There are a couple details that take this coconut cream pie to the next level. Like many versions, it is made with a homemade, flaky, all-butter pie crust filled with a creamy coconut pudding. It is finished with clouds of whipped cream and plenty of toasted coconut flakes. Using buttermilk and a confident amount of salt to offset some of the sweetness is how you take this pie from good to great.

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This pie was inspired by my dad. He requested coconut cream pie in place of cake for his birthday, so I got to work. I knew he was after a homemade, old-fashioned version. It needed to be a creamy, sweet coconut cream pie loaded with whipped cream and coconut flakes. He reminisces about Marie Callender’s version, so I kept a photo of one of their pies on my desktop as reference. Lol. At the same time, I was also aiming for a pie that had some balance. After a few rounds, I landed on using buttermilk and sea salt in the coconut filling for a filling that is hard not to love.
coconut cream pie in a glass pie plate with a slice cut out of it

Coconut Cream Pie: The 3 Main Parts

A classic coconut cream pie has three main components.

  1. A really good pie crust: Golden, flaky, with good structure. The pie crust will be fully baked prior to filling. Instructions below! I use this pie crust dough for a lot of pies.
    a fully baked pie crust prior to filling
  2. Creamy coconut pudding filling: Arguably the heart and soul of this pie. Spread it across the fully baked pie crust (pictured below). Then refrigerate until set.
    a fully baked pie crust filled with coconut cream pie filling
  3. Whipped cream topping with toasted coconut: Just before serving whip some heavy cream with a kiss of powdered sugar and pile it on top of the coconut cream filling. Add a finishing touch of toasted coconut flakes, slice into wedges and enjoy!

How To Make the Coconut Cream Pie Filling

There are basically two major ways to approach coconut cream pie filling. You can make a homemade coconut pudding on the stovetop or you can make the filling using pudding mix as the base. This pie uses vanilla pudding mix to provide a quick, stable, reliable foundation. The pudding mix is combined with buttermilk and sea salt to balance out the sweetness contributed by the pudding mix and a lot of sweetened coconut. A bit of whipped cream is folded into the mix to bring a bit of lightness to the filling. You will be able to make the filling in five minutes flat. It’s fool-proof and absolutely delicious.

There’s certainly an argument for making homemade coconut pudding for the filling here. But because this has become one of my favorite “quick” pies to throw together, I go the pudding route. No egg tempering required.

a pie crust after blind baking with pie weights and dried beans

How Do I Blind Bake a Pie Crust?

A pie like this requires a fully baked pie crust also known as a blind baked crust. Blind bake pie crusts are used for pies with a no-bake filling. I include detailed instructions in the recipe, but the picture (above) demonstrates the general set-up. To blind bake a pie crust, line a pie plate with your pie dough. Place a sheet of parchment paper or aluminum foil to cover the dough. Then fill completely with pie weights, or dried beans. Bake until the edges of the pie crust become golden. Carefully remove the pie weights, dock with a fork to prevent air bubbles, and brush the edges with an egg wash. Bake for another 15 minutes or until the entire crust is beautiful golden.

What Kind of Vanilla Pudding Mix Should I Use?

When you go to buy pudding mix for this pie, you want instant pudding mix. That’s the first thing. My recipe calls for two boxes of 3.4-ounce vanilla instant pudding mix. I’ve been using the 365 Whole Foods Market Vanilla Instant Pudding most often – works great. But I’ve also tested with Jell-O instant vanilla pudding (3.7-ounce boxes). Seems a bit sweeter, but works well. Basically, don’t get hung up on the weight of the pudding boxes, just aim for something in the 3.5-ounce size range and confirm it is instant.
A whole coconut cream pie photographed from above

Coconut Cream Pie: Variations

Little tweaks to your coconut cream pie filling and topping can have big impact. If you want a classic flavor profile, go the vanilla route. Personally, my favorite version is made with a couple generous splashes of bourbon. It’s boozy, decadent, and wildly good. Instructions for both versions are included in the recipe below.

  • Bourbon Coconut Cream Pie: Add 2 tablespoons of bourbon to the coconut cream filling and mix until the pudding begins to thicken. Follow the instructions for whipping the cream with powdered sugar. Adding 1 tablespoon bourbon to as soft peaks are forming and continue to mix.
  • Vanilla Coconut Cream Pie: This is my basic recipe. Some recipes use coconut pudding or coconut pudding mix, and/or coconut extract, and coconut milk in their coconut cream pie. But I feel like the amount of sweetened coconut in the filling delivers plenty coconut flavor. And I prefer the texture and mouthfeel here. I use 2 teaspoon of good vanilla extract in the filling, and 1 teaspoon in the whipped cream topping. 

close up of side view of a coconut cream pie in a glass pie plate with a slice cut out of it

Make Ahead!

This is one of the easiest pies I make. And least time intensive. And it’s a breeze to thread into your life. Even if you only have a few minutes here, and a few minutes there. The most intensive aspect is keeping an eye on the pie crust as it is baking, to get it just right.

  • Make the pie dough: You can do this weeks ahead of time and place each round of pie dough double-wrapped in the freezer. Or make it a few days ahead of time and keep refrigerated.
  • Make the filling and fill the pie: You can do this up to a couple days ahead of time.

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Rose Petal Granola

A variation on the granola from my book, Super Natural Every Day – this time with rose petals, walnuts, currants, and black pepper.

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If you like making homemade food gifts for friends and family, this rose petal granola is one to bookmark. It’s pretty. The honey-butter toasted oats get nice and crunchy. The kiss of rose water nudges it into the realm of the unexpected. It’s a variation on the granola in Super Natural Every Day, this version made with rose petals, walnuts, currants, and black pepper.

Rose Petal Granola

Where to Source Rose Petals

We used to sell beautiful arctic rose petals from Quebec when we were running our little online shop. It took me less time than I imagined to work my way through my personal stock, and now I find myself sourcing from a number of sources. I look for rose petals that are fragrant. They should have vibrant color, be organic, and/or not subjected to spraying or treatments. A few ways to source dried rose petals for your cooking:

  1. Make your own edible flowers: The most economic way to source edible roses (and other flowers) is to grow and dry them your self. Here’s a page all about edible flowers.
  2. Farmers’ Markets: Farmers’ markets are a great place to buy edible flowers. Ask if you don’t see them displayed. Because they are fragile, farmers often keep them in a cooler.
    rose petals drying
  3. On-line rose petal sources: I really like the organic panneer roses from Diaspora Co. as well as the organic rose petals from Toogood Botanics. Both are organically grown and retain their vibrant color and fragrance.

Rose Petal Granola

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Cranberry Cake

A charming, festive buttermilk cranberry cake topped with a flood of vanilla-flecked buttermilk icing.

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This festive cranberry cake is a holiday version of a cake I’ve been baking for years — a decade? More? The foundation is inspired by a buttermilk cake by Nikole Herriott that ran in Anthology magazine forever ago. I do various rye flour versions and what you see here is 1 part dark rye flour to 3 parts all-purpose flour. It’s rich, moist, fragrant, vanilla-kissed, and cranberry studded. The buttermilk icing sets into a sweet, sugar crust.

A cranberry cake with vanilla icing decorated with sugared cranberries on a table

Cranberry Cake: The Ingredients

A couple notes related to some of the ingredients used in this cake.

  • Flours: You’ll be using a combination of unbleached all-purpose flour and rye flour for this cake. Ideally, you’ll use dark rye flour, it’s the whole grain version of rye flour and what I prefer here. But! If you have a lighter rye flour, feel free to swap that in. No rye flour? Go ahead and substitute more all-purpose flour.
    An undecorated cake cooling on a wire rack
  • Buttermilk: Low-fat is fine.
  • Cranberries: I tend to use fresh for the cake batter, but frozen is ok too. It might extend your baking time a bit. I use fresh (not frozen) to make sparkling cranberries.

A sliced cranberry cake with vanilla icing with cranberries dotting the crumb of the cake

Ideal Cake Pan Size

I’ve baked this cake in just about every cake pan imaginable. The cake pictured in the photos you see here was baked in an antique ceramic terrine mold (with similar volume as a 9×5 loaf pan). You can do a series of smaller cakes, a bundt version, or classic round. The main thing is to butter and flour your pans well, keep an eye on things while your cake(s) is baking, use a cake tester vigilantly, and adjust your timing. You’ll have about 7 1/2 cups of cake batter here. Alternately, I love cooking this batter in  a mix of old ironstone molds, the little cakes turn out incredibly charming.

A cranberry cake with vanilla icing decorated with sugared cranberries on a table

Cranberry Cake with Sparkling Cranberries on Top

I include an extra component in this cake recipe — the sparkling cranberries. They’re beautiful, festive and people love snacking on them. Use them to decorate your cake and then serve extras on the side or as a component in your holiday spread. They’re great on a cheese board, etc. That said, you can skip them and keep things mono-chromatic and snowy white if you like.
A sliced cranberry cake with vanilla icing with cranberries dotting the crumb of the cake on a sheet of parchment paper

The Icing

Vanilla beans are extra splurgy right now, so if you don’t have access to them, or they’re out of budget, a second choice is vanilla bean paste. Third choice, skip the vanilla in the icing, or replace a teaspoon of the buttermilk with vanilla extract. If you love icing, double up.

Full, unsliced cranberry cake with vanilla icing and powdered sugar decorated with sugared cranberries on marble

If you enjoy this cake, there’s another version in Near & Far using an even higher percentage of rye flour.

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